Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to data migration. More specifically, the present invention relates to providing migration of the nickname cache for email systems and devices.
Description of the Related Art
Data migration can be viewed as a process for transferring data between one or more computer systems and storage devices. Data migration may be performed for several reasons including providing backup copy of the data and consolidating data over different systems and devices into one central location. Data migration may also be performed to provide information from one computer system to a new computer system so that the new computer system also has access to the migrated data.
Generally, data migration is performed through the use of a processor and corresponding data migration software run on the processor. The data migration software allows the data migration to be performed in an automated fashion. To achieve an effective data migration, the data migration software also maps between locations where the data is originally stored (e.g., a source system) and where the data will be written (e.g., a target system). The data migration software further evaluates the format of the data being extracted from its original storage location (e.g., the source system) and a requested format of the data corresponding to the location where the data will be written to (e.g., the target system).
Many mail clients (e.g., Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo) include a nickname cache. For example, with Microsoft Outlook, the nickname cache is also known as the ‘autocomplete stream’. With Microsoft Outlook, the autocomplete stream persists an autocomplete list that displays a list of names in the “to”, “cc” and “bcc” boxes while a user is composing an email. Generally, the list of names of the autocomplete list contains the names of frequent contacts that the user communicates on a regular basis. The list allows the user to input names on the list without the need to type out the entire email address of the recipient. For example, user may be capable of typing a portion of the e-mail address and then be prompted with choices as to what email address the partial entry corresponds to. In other examples, the user may be capable of inputting part of or the entire name of the recipient. The nickname cache can then associate the inputted name with the corresponding email address. This correlation can be helpful when the email address associated with a particular recipient is not intuitive or complex.
Normally the nickname cache is not migrated during the process of data migration of corresponding emails. Data migration generally migrates the PST data (e.g., personal storage tables) associated with the email application. The nickname cache is a temporary object stored, for example, on the computing device associated with the email application being used (e.g., Outlook). When migrating from one device to another, the user would typically have to generate a new nickname cache for the new device.